The Following Is An except from Denny Carletons memoir Welcome To My World
When the 60’s ended, the music and culture began
to morph into something different. As the band fell
apart, my relationship with Vicky was changing also. I
was hungry for God and had started to read the
scriptures. It was during this time I accepted Christ as
my savior. I went to this little bookstore where a
person was talking about accepting Christ as your
savior. I didn’t really know what that meant, but it
sounded pretty good to me.
I had been raised Catholic and there was a lot of
God’s grace already working inside me. I said “Jesus,
you can run my life” and that’s when the band broke
up. We were scheduled to make about $450.00 per
week which was a lot of money back then and virtually
every job got cancelled.
I have thought through my own relationship
experiences many times. I believe that, through my
Baptism and Confirmation, I already did have a
personal relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
So, what happened to me that was different when I
accepted Christ? I think what happened is that I came
to realize I wanted Him to be the center of my life one
hundred percent of the time. Christ wants full
custody not weekend visitations.
You receive the Holy Spirit at Confirmation when
you are a teenager in the Catholic Church. To me, I
believe it is a matter of degree though, something like
looking at the ocean and seeing its beauty, but if you
don’t actually go into the water, you won’t experience
it fully. If you are given a present and don't open it, you
will still have the present, but not the benefit. Also, if
you have a new technological gadget, but do not read
the instructions, you will not be able to take advantage
of the power of that tool.
It was during this time I read scripture where Jesus
told the rich man to give away all material goods and
follow Him. I basically gave away all of my rock and
roll clothes and cut my hair. Some poor kid in the
inner city of Cleveland had to wear my Austin Powers
style of clothing.
Within a few weeks of giving my life to the Lord
and dumping my clothes, I attended an
interdenominational prayer group. Vic, a minister,
prayed over me so that I might have a deeper walk with
the Holy Spirit. I know I received from that experience
a power and presence of God and a hunger for the
scriptures and I even spoke in tongues and desire to
witness. From that day forward, my desire has been to
share with people the love of God and his message
through the gospel in a non-condemning way.
I was twenty years old, a Christian charismatic
Catholic, singer/songwriter, college student, and rock
musician who spoke in tongues. All of that along with
the 60’s decade was quite an overload.
Soon after this deeper indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
I dreamed that I lost all my friends. In real life I was
struggling because I did not fit in with the bands
anymore and I had broken up with Vickie. The dream
shook me up and I went down to the lake to pray, and
while there, I wept. After the release I experienced from
crying, there was a comforting from the Holy Spirit that
was so obvious. Then the words to a song came to me:
Jesus Will Bring You Home
Here’s a song for the broken
hearted lover in a broken love
affair And for those meek
Who just won’t let their hearts grow cold
And for all the confused, criticized and abused Don’t
worry, Jesus will bring you home
For a few months, I went to hear Vic at his bible
study, and I was so excited coming home from one of
the bible classes that I almost drove off the road in the
mountainous region of Chardon.
Vic had an unbelievable belief in God’s sovereignty.
Do I agree with everything Vic taught? No. Do I believe
in everything I have said in my life?? We grow, love,
forgive and remember the good. With all of my
influences in life, I have found I have had to take what I
like and leave the rest.
As good as a bible teacher that Vic was, I needed
to connect with a community or with some people my
own age who shared a similar experience. I thought
my experience was foreign to the Catholic Church, but
I was wrong. God in his sovereignty brought me to
some college students my own age who were Catholic
and struggling to understand this Holy Spirit
experience.
I ran into a guy named David and shared my
experience. David told me there were about seven
Catholic young men meeting and praying at Cleveland
State University each week. I joined that group and
began praying with them once a week.
During the early 1970’s, I was church hopping,
attending different prayer groups with different
denominational backgrounds. I loved the ecumenical
experience, but I was most comfortable in the Catholic
Church having been raised in the Catholic Church. My
worship experience is more fulfilled in the Catholic
Church, but I believe the Lord dwells in all the faithful
churches.
I thought of a good metaphor of how I see the
different branches of Christianity. I used to live close to
Lake Erie in Cleveland and one of my favorite views of
the lake is from Wildwood Park by Neff Road. It has a
Marina, walking and biking trails, ducks and birds, four
or five fishing piers that you can walk for hundreds of
yards into Lake Erie and is connected to Euclid Creek.
No matter how many times I go there, I see another
perspective of the park and most importantly the lake.
There is another park about three miles away called
Sims Park. There are benches there from where the lake
is visible. In this little parable the lake symbolizes the
living water of the Holy Spirit. The lake is visible from
both parks, but in one park, the lake is straight
ahead of you; therefore, you are seeing one
perspective or view of the lake
. In other words, I like
looking at the lake from Neff Road with all its angles,
but I also enjoy t h e other views, and see worth and
beauty from those views as well. I love praying and
worshiping with any believer, but I also love the
sacraments, Mary, the Saints, history and wisdom of
the Magisterium.
During this period, which was like a honeymoon
period, the Word became alive to me and I couldn’t get
enough.
I also had this overwhelming love and a desire to tell
people. I literally wanted to hug trees. We are made for
this experience with the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine said
“Restless is the heart until it finds rest in you.”
Maybethat’s why people get high or fill themselves up with so
many activities; they know instinctively that they are
designed for something other than humdrum tasks.
In writing my biography, the 1970’s have been the
most difficult period to write about. I went from a
sports enthusiastic kid, collecting baseball cards and
such to playing in bands as a local musician. All of
my identity was wrapped up in music. The first thing
that happened to me when I gave my life to the Lord
was I lost my band (and my source of income along with
it). I also lost my girlfriend.
I became involved with the Church, but also wanted to
continue to play in the band with my friends. Moses
tried to continue playing as it was, but that didn’t
work. Then we tried to organize with Randy, Dave and
Jack Springer, but I was too divided and, ultimately,
quit the band. Brian came back. Brian, Randy, Jack
Springer and Dave Alexy played for a while before
breaking up. My friends were frustrated with my
vacillating; they wanted me either in or out. I am sorry
about that now; I should have made a clean break.
I was a student at Tri-C taking the basic beginning
courses while also journaling and writing. I would tell
anyone who would listen about the Lord, including
college students, people I knew from bands, folks from
church and street people with whom I became
acquainted while riding the bus to and from college in
downtown Cleveland.
While continuing my education at Tri-C, I went on a
weekend retreat with the guys from Cleveland State who
I had been praying with. Father Summers coordinated
the retreat. He asked us if we would be interested in
living together if he could get a house.
We all thought
it was a good idea and then a house became available
on Clifton Boulevard in Lakewood, Ohio. We had
about eight or nine guys living there. We met every
morning for prayer and in the evenings, we had meals
together. We shared household chores.
Eventually,
there were four households living side by side.
Once a week we had a gripe session or
discussion. It went something like this: “Den, you
use all of the hot water when you take a shower and
it’s not fair.” And I would say “Sorry man about that
I won't do it again.” Sometimes one of the guys
would say “Please pray for me and my girlfriend that
we don’t get carried away. We want to wait for
marriage so keep praying that we have the strength.
We were asked by one of the adults identified
With our group, if this one fellow who had a lot of
problems could live with us. He moved in and we
would minister to him, as they put it, that he might
be healed by interacting with healthy Christian guys
-- bad idea. This guy confided his failings and faults
with us and we reacted like twenty-year old guys. We
said slang things like: “That’s sick dude.” So, this
arrangement didn’t work out so well for this guy, and
after leaving some deep pain and damage, he
eventually left with the same problems.
The group had agreed to help sort through our
lives; asking each other for his input on major
decisions. Well, that didn’t work for very long as one
day one of the guys said I'm marrying so and so and I
don’t care what you guys think. end of discernment.
Iused to have a problem with people who had money,
but Father Summers gave me some good advice. He told
me there are a lot of good people who have money. He
told me that people are actually sick these days if they
“fit in” and when they are sick of being sick God can
heal them.
One time he saw me staring at girl and said
“Isn’t it something how God has made us with this
attraction towards women ,but Denny, God has
something much more in store for you than staring at
women.” He also said that we shouldn’t call something
bad that is only half good. One of the greatest things I
learned from Father Ken is how he could change his
vocabulary to suit different audiences.
If he was
talking to Catholics, he would say to renew our
Baptism by taking Confirmation seriously. If he was
talking to a Protestant or non-denominational, he
would talk about being born again or baptized in the
Holy Ghost.
There were quite a few changes for me at that time.
I had a pastoral counselor named Mike Elizabeth, a
Marianist brother, who later would become a priest.
He counseled me through a lot of changes. We both
agreed that it was good for a season to not play music.
After putting my music down for a while, we both
discerned that playing music, or doing anything for
that matter, had to be something truly from the heart.
In other words, almost anything you engage in can be
done with a desire to glorify the Lord. It is so much
easier today for Christian musicians because there is
actually a Christian music business.
In the 70’s there
wasn’t even Christian rock music yet and when it was
introduced, many people had a real problem with the
beat of rock and roll in the C h u r c h .
At some point, we both decided I should go back and
play. I was compelled to return to the same people I
was once compelled to leave. In hindsight, it seems a
little like Abraham offering up his son only to see God
give him back.
One of my attempts to play was with Phil Keaggy who
was also a Christian. Larry Tomczak told Phil about me
and I was then invited to a recording session of Phil’s.
After I met Phil and knowing him for a few weeks, I
thought I might get to play bass for him. We were
supposed to jam together, but I didn’t drive at the time
and didn’t have bus money to get to Akron.
I remember
crying because the door had been closed. It doesn’t
matter now, but as a young man walking by faith to
seemingly lose out on a great opportunity made me sad.
Our community was different Although Christian,
we would go to Fat Glenn’s to drink beer, listen to the
bands and dance for fun. I remember watching the
band play and going to the restroom to weep. I didn’t
seem to connect with the Phil Keaggy type, but I didn’t
fit into secular bands anymore either. It was no small
thing to give up my music.
We lived on Clifton Boulevard on the west side of
Cleveland. Sometimes Chris or Bob Roach and I would
walk to the rapid station and take the subway to the
airport. I remember thinking that I was living Simon
and Garfunkel’s - The Boxer:
When I left my home and family, I was no more
than a boy In the quite of the railway stations running
scared Laying low seeking out the poorer quarters
where the